


All the King's Horses

by kittu9



Category: King Kong (2005)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Running Away, Trains, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-29
Updated: 2011-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-20 20:31:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittu9/pseuds/kittu9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now they must put the pieces of their life back together again.</p><p>Afterwards, Jack and Ann need to get away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the King's Horses

**Author's Note:**

> Written January 2006.

In the end, they run away.

Jack's a playwright, is what it boils down to. He's far more comfortable with writing a happy ending—or any ending, really—than he is with trying to figure out how to live one (although Jack, of all people, is used to writing himself into corners and finding a way out again. It's an occupational hazard and perseverance has always been one of his more defining characteristics). But he loves Ann—he's a little awed by the nakedness of this truth—and he finds himself roused to actions gracious and protective (not to mention rather rash) for her sake. (Jack's terribly noble, although he doesn't realize it, and he is generous but not selfless in his love. He doesn't have much in the way of experience, and Ann is hardly, to be fair, a usual creature. She is dear and proud and these days she is also softly unhappy. Jack remembers that Ann used to laugh freely—she had a charming demeanor—and he wonders if she will ever discover that freedom again.)

This is why they leave together and in the middle of the night (which in New York City is not really a stealthy way to escape, it is merely a time when the lonely trek to the train yards attracts fewer inquiring glances cast in their direction). They need to escape from the barrage of grainy and half-obscene newspaper photographs, from Carl's needy and poisonous designs on the future, and also they must leave behind the twisted and lofty shape of the Empire State. The City, once full of a thousand sacred quarters and avenues of fantastic escape, has become cheap and disillusioned, too sharply contrasted between _before_ and _after_.

 Now the billboards and light displays of more prominent theaters alternated between insincere shadows and painfully adulterated light, a cacophony of noise, a chiaroscuro of manic and melancholy.

Navigating through the train yard proves to be dizzying but not difficult and Jack finds himself being ushered into a compartment by an impatiently efficient conductor (Jack wonders if there is any other kind, really, but Jack is a pedestrian at heart and a recluse by habit). Ann clings to his arm, so that she is tucked close to his side (Jack is too thin to push effectively through a crowd, but he has proven himself tall enough to serve as a sheltering force, a sort of combined anchor and landmark).

(He's half-frustrated and half-glad of his size once they aboard—it's impossible to stretch out fully, but it is possible for Ann to move closer to him, to insinuate herself into the oversized shelter of his coat. Usually subdued, she does so, and Jack arranges himself as best he can.)

(Ann's proximity warms him and he is less in the habit of vocalizing discomfort than he is in peevishly internalizing it and going on about his business with a slightly resigned air.)

The trip is long (but not arduous) and the rhythmic movement of the train (reminiscent of _The Venture_ in calm weather, punctuated by his typewriter) is a little comforting. It fills in the lulls of conversation nicely (for two people who live by words, their creation and communication, Jack and Ann sometimes find it hard to speak).

They make plans for when they arrive in Chicago (which is an inevitable destination, Jack thinks. All rivers lead to the sea and all trains run through Chicago); Ann has a little money that she managed to save from her last job and she tells Jack that she wants to find Manny (Jack is still slightly hazy on the cast of individuals that populate Ann's past, but he's a quick study and willing to learn). Ann asks him if he thinks that she will be able to find work in this Second City, if he knows anything about their theaters. Understandably, the information he has to offer her is vague.

Jack, despite how his appearance seems to suggest a sort of impoverished and malnourished existence, is not badly off at all. He knows a few names that might afford access to some theaters, and if all else fails he will continue to write. He wonders, though, if he and Ann are going far enough away. Jack is feeling wordless and bereft, and uncommonly lost. It is under the weight of this curious despair that he is struggling, because he can see no clear resolution for the two of them (and oh, he desperately want it to be the two of them, in the end) and he can't change their circumstances with a few emphatic keystrokes. Jack is holding on the Ann and she is starting to reach back out to him and this is cause for a least a little hope.

Show business is a bit like this, Ann agrees (they have whole conversations in this vein without saying a word. The frequency of these communications increases as the days go by) and neither one of them has made quitting into a habit.  The train has stopped somewhere between Michigan and Indiana to refuel (if not America's heartland, then at least this is a kidney, or possibly the liver. Jack is feeling incrementally more sardonic as time passes). The two of them are walking slowly about the platform so that Jack can stretch out his legs (the constant discomfort on board is making him feel a little of his old self, tickling at the edges of his reflexes. Oddly, that's a good sign). Although they have been in the act of transit for days, it is only just now that they are beginning to feel poised, properly hopeful, at the edge of a strange new life.


End file.
